Rethinking labour migration: Covid-19, essential work, and systemic resilience

Bridget Anderson,Martin Ruhs,Friedrich Poeschel

doi:10.1186/s40878-021-00252-2

Abstract

Many of the ‘essential workers’ during the Covid-19 pandemic are migrants, playing an important role for the continued functioning of basic services – notably health services, social care, and food supply chains. We argue that this role should be taken into account when assessing the impacts of migrant workers and in the design of labour migration and related public policies. Existing studies highlight how the employment of migrant workers in essential services is shaped by interests of employers, sectoral policies, and national institutions. Considerations of how migrants may affect the systemic resilience of essential services – in a pandemic or similar crises – are pervasively absent, not only in policy-making but also in research. Drawing on several disciplines, we outline the concept of systemic resilience and develop implications for the analysis and regulation of labour migration. We call for shifting the focus from the role of migrants in specific occupations and sectors in particular countries to transnational systems of production and service provision. To study how migrant workers affect systemic resilience, we propose an agenda for comparative research along three lines: comparing migrants to citizens within the same system, comparing migrants’ roles across systems, and comparing strategies for resilience adopted in different systems.

Highlights

In the spring and summer of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic and associated bans on movement within and across countries led to severe labour market shocks
In a post-Covid-19 world, debates and decisions on these trade-offs need to go beyond the conventional short-term focus on efficiency, welfare and distribution and consider longer-term concerns including systemic resilience in the provision of essential goods and services
The Covid-19 pandemic has raised new and urgent research and policy questions about the factors that shape the resilience of essential services to major shocks, especially with regards to food and agriculture, health services, and social care

Summary

Introduction

In the spring and summer of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic and associated bans on movement within and across countries led to severe labour market shocks. In a post-Covid-19 world, debates and decisions on these trade-offs need to go beyond the conventional short-term focus on efficiency (what are the economic costs and benefits of immigration today?), welfare (what are the fiscal effects of migrant workers in a particular year?) and distribution (what are the impacts of migrant workers on different groups of citizens?) and consider longer-term concerns including systemic resilience in the provision of essential goods and services.

Results

Conclusion